The roles and functions of cutaneous mechanoreceptors

Combined psychophysical and neurophysiological research has resulted in a r elatively complete picture of the neural mechanisms of tactile perception. The results support the idea that each of the four mechano receptive affere nt systems innervating the hand serves a distinctly different perceptual fu nction, and that tactile perception can be understood as the sum of these f unctions. Furthermore, the receptors in each of those systems seem to be sp ecialized for their assigned perceptual function.